Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Unemployment, droning citizens, and sequester scare-mongering

February's unemployment rate fell
from 7.9 percent to 7.7 percent, and the Labor Department’s survey of
households found that 170,000 more people were working. But there's a downside:
the survey also found that, despite the number of working-age civilians increasing
by 165,000, the labor force
actually shrank in size instead of growing, and
130,000 fewer people were working or looking for work in February.

The employment-to-population ratio
(EPOP) was unchanged at 58.6 percent, exactly the same as the rate in February
of 2012, and an anemic four-tenths percent above the low mark in the summer of
2011. This compares with an EPOP of 63.0 percent in 2007 before the crisis
struck.

The Labor Force Participation Rate
at 63.5 percent was well below the 66-to-67 percent rate that was normal over
the last 20 years. The Bureau of Labor Statistics data show workers remain
discouraged and many are unable to find full time employment, or have given up
trying.

The U-6 number under the BLS’
“Alternative Measures of Labor Underutilization” includes persons who have given
up looking for work, as well as the 7.7 percent who are unemployed. That number
is 14.3 percent.

Compared with December 2007, when
the recession officially began, there are 5.8 million fewer Americans working
full time, and there are 2.8 million more working part time. Part-time workers, who
usually work fewer than 35 hours a week,
are still a minority of the work force, but their share is growing. When the
recession began, 16.9 percent of those working usually worked part time. That
share rose in 2008 and 2009 and has remained high since, and today stands at
19.2 percent.

This would not be so troubling if
people were working fewer hours by choice. But that is not the case.

* * * *

Isn't it interesting that the same
administration that believes foreign terrorists should be brought into the
U.S., given the same status in court as actual citizens, provided a defense attorney
if they can't afford one, and put on trial as if they had merely shoplifted
items at the local grocery store, would equivocate instead of forthrightly
condemning the idea of potentially using a drone on U.S. soil to kill a U.S.
citizen who was not posing an immediate threat, and do so with no more due
process than that someone in the administration thought that person was a
threat to the country.

Citizens are guaranteed protection
from such third world practices by the 5th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution;
non-citizen terrorists -- actual and suspected -- have no such guarantees, and
deserve none. This small point apparently escapes the notice of the Obama
administration.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) had the good
sense to force this issue to the fore by filibustering the confirmation of John
Brennan as CIA Director
in order to get the administration to furnish more information about its
intentions. Some Democrats joined Sen. Paul
in holding the administration accountable to the Constitutional protections
afforded U.S. citizens.

Ultimately, Mr. Brennan was
confirmed, but he took the oath of office by swearing not on a Bible, as is
customary, but on a version of the U.S. Constitution that did not include the
Bill of Rights.

* * * *

Two of the most prominent aspects
of the sequester are the scare-mongering and duplicity of the Obama administration.

First, an example of the false
predictions of catastrophe: “Starting tomorrow everybody here, all the folks
who are cleaning the floors at the Capitol. Now that Congress has left,
somebody’s going to be vacuuming and cleaning those floors and throwing out the
garbage. They’re going to have less pay. The janitors, the security guards,
they just got a pay cut, and they’ve got to figure out how to manage that.
That’s real," President Obama said at a news conference on March 1.

Didn't happen, and was never going
to happen.

And now, the duplicity: The Washington Times reported that
"Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service official Charles Brown said he
asked if he could try to spread out the sequester cuts in his region to
minimize the impact, and he said he was told not to do anything that would
lessen the dire impacts Congress had been warned of."

Mr. Brown was told in an email: "We
have gone on record with a notification to Congress and whoever else that
'APHIS would eliminate assistance to producers in 24 states in managing
wildlife damage to the aquaculture industry, unless they provide funding to
cover the costs.' So it is our opinion that however you manage that reduction,
you need to make sure you are not contradicting what we said the impact would
be."

The Armageddon President Obama has
forecast could easily be averted by a simple bill in Congress to allow the
president to decide what spending to cut and what not to cut, or to allow
managers to manage their own budgets. But if the APHIS directive described
above reflects the president's attitude, Mr. Obama wants the maximum pain from
his boondoggle, and also wants to stay as far away as possible from
responsibility for the misery his idea produces.

Update February 9, 2009: The worldwide financial crisis has made it harder on banks and credit card companies are facing rising delinquency...

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